“ I’ll throw this out to the Front Porch - please tell me it isn’t as bad as it seems where once again we are talking a big game,..”
You know the answer to that Phib. And yes, we are all getting recalled to active duty. At least the majority of members of the front porch recalled won’t be concerned about fitreps or PFA or woke tranny training.
The only sailors I've seen with a similar number of hashmarks of late were some VTU bubbas who were retiring as First Classes at age 60. They kept doing funeral honors, and were allowed to re-enlist.
When FFG-9 went NRF in 1985 we had a SELRES CWO4 who sported a gold Underwater Demolitions pin. He'd been a Navy Frogman in WWII. The guy was ancient but impressive. For all I know the gentleman is still bench pressing truck axles. I was a CWO3 at the time and kinda worshiped him.
If the first step is knowing you have a problem, CNRF Battle Orders 2032 at least checks that box. Unfortunately, the AC/RC leadership thinks they have a decade to even take one step in the right direction towards fixing that problem.
“On a different note I just spent an hour and a half listening to the joint testimony of the USTRANSCOM commander before the SASC. …. General Van Ovost, the TRANSCOM commander pointed out that the 44 RORO vessels in our inventory are all 44 years old or older with 17 that are 50 years older. She did not go as far as her predecessor did in admitting insufficient capacity but she did a very good job of arguing that we need to recapitalized the vessels run by the Maritime Administratoin (Ready Reserve). She admits serious problems in INDOPACOM.
…. We are not in good shape. Tanker fleet is very old and not being rebuilt quickly enough. The same is true of our haze gray transports. Van Ovost’s written posture statement is written in DOD gibberish and she speaks the same way but in the end she is clear about the shape we are in.”
Damn sure glad Ike and Churchill weren’t facing this problem set 79 years ago….
Too old and not enough. Just look at the current NDRF and MSP lists. Is leadership really saying that's enough to support a sustained peer-to-peer conflict in WESTPAC?
Old National Guard/USAR MSG here. Not only does the USAR do this well, but there are kinds of units that are (or at least used to be) primarily army reserve units. The Army learned some hard lessons in Desert Storm I about ensuring that these units have all their equipment and actually gets out into the field to use it in semi-real-world situations (and again as we rolled into Afghanistan/Iraq) One key value I noted at the time is that in many cases in the USAR and NG units were civilian SMEs in the field.
few different flavors... NMCBs are homeported out of Port Hueneme and Gulfport, ACB 1 out of Coronado and ACB2 (just decom'd) out of Little Creek. Then there are the UCTs (underwater construction teams). As for the fighting part? Well there are annual Field Ex's but they're defensive in nature... convoy stuff is usually fun going through the Tanga Tanga in Guam or say at Pendleton where some pain-in-the-ass SEALS are brought in to unleash havoc on the main body... typically around 3:00 a.m.
The only way that this will work in the reserves is if we use 1) Exclusively commercial equipment and 2) Commit to not scrapping the units. We relegated the Inshore Boat Units, Coastal Riverines, and Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare Units to the reserves and it was their death knell. The only thing that the reserves are able to do without getting stabbed in the back is Coffee / Donuts units in Newport and the Pentagon, or some cush Naval Readiness Center job to support IA's. By using commercial equipment, the Navy's maintenance and operations budgets won't be taxed, we'll only pay to practice on commercial equipment, and if the balloon goes up we can lease the equipment at risk or ouright purchase it.
Concur on the equipment. The original CB units had no choice but to use commercial equipment due to the need for an immediate reaction force - which I submit is where we find ourselves today. As a retired EDO, I’ll even go out on a limb and suggest that with only a few equipment changes (to simplify repair logistics), all of the vessels Sal talks about could be duplicated to deal with that part of the equation.
“...every other service seems to do a better job getting a bang for its buck from the reserves. The Navy seems to let so much human capital go uncaptured - even in part - when they leave the active force.”
100% correct (unless things have changed, which I doubt.)
First-hand experience: when the first Gulf War went down, me and a couple of buds - we all had been F-14 FRS instructors, now SELRES - went to the skipper of the F-14 RAG, said, if any of your pilots get ordered to the Fleet, we volunteer to come back to the FRS on active duty, or as SELRES, to cover the loss. I was more than willing to CQ and deploy.
We got told, to our faces, “I don’t need the Reserves”...all the while we watched Guard F-16 pilots going in on the first wave. In fact, an F-14 bubba that switched to the ANG (Syracuse, IIRC) was in on that first strike.
We got told later, after the war,it was all about funding. If the REGNAV could show they were 100% combat capable and ready, met all war tasking without “needing” the Reserves, then a claim could be made on reservist funding. “Why spend all this money on the Reserves when we just fought a war and didn’t need them?” so the argument went.
Sadly, a war west of wake will be a little bit more complicated than telling Saddam he can't have his new gas station. At this rate, America is going to wake up one morning and realize that they can't meet the tasking without the Navy Reserves and the Reserves they do have, haven't be trained to do the job they need them to do.
It is more than likely even worse than we think. I was recently by Suisun Bay several times in the past two months. There is one RORO and about 5 or 6 Liberty ships and an old single stack DE. That’s it. The RORO appears to be mid 70’s vintage. On top of that, we have grossly neglected our merchant fleet. We do little to promote and encourage maritime careers. The learning curve is much more difficult when you have people shooting at you. It’s good that some are ready to be recalled, because what I see from the MElinneals is not encouraging.
Just look at the list of ships available on the NDRF and MSP list, and ask yourself are those enough logistics and repair support needed to win a sustained peer-to-peer conflict in the Western Pacific? Be afraid, be very afraid.
I have been retired for a long time and spent most of my USN years in USNR.
Biggest problem with USNR is the TAR program. In my opinion, the TAR program is just a way to insulate the active reserve from the regular Navy. Being in the Ready Reserve means one weekend a month, or equivalent, and 14 days a year on ACDUTRA.
I think the reserve program should be administered by an augmentation officer in every command with need for reserve help. They could control and assign personnel where needed rather than asking a third party to do the same.
It might make the reserve member a little closer to the active Navy and help in readiness when they train with their parent command.
Ditch the TAR program, save some money and have a real Ready Reserve.
I concur. I spent most of my time as a reserve unit CO fighting the TARs. Naval Reserve Force ships and aircraft units work pretty well -- the reserves kept the mine force alive -- but rest of the reserve program is a waste of time and manpower. Integration with the active Navy would be an improvement.
100% agree. The reserve unit N8 is frequently nicknamed the NOSC Warfare Officer. TARs and NRCs (what they call NOSCs again) should be put out to pasture in favor of a model where the supported Active Duty command is responsible for training and equipping their RC sailors which support their mission, with the funding and personnel needed to get that done. The British have been operating with this model for years.
The encouraging part is that the RC is moving towards a model where they train more with their supported AC component with flex drills away from the NRCs focused on training for their actual mobilization billet. Basically, what the reserves were meant to do before twenty years of endless desert war atrophied that ability.
In my last year aboard an NRF Frigate we lost many Regulars and the shortfall was to be made up by SELRES who got underway with us one weekend a month and for two weeks once a year. We were also supposed to get replacements TAR's for some of our lost Regulars too. I heard that most of those guys were "hand picked" PN's and YN's dragged kicking and screaming from permanent shore duty to sea duty (they had all been PROMISED 20 years of shore duty, you know) and were being force converted to ET and other technical ratings. The pipelines for training were very long..."A" School + follow-on equipment schools. I kept track of the ET's coming to me. It seemed pretty obvious they didn't like what was happening to them, but they couldn't flunk out. They got set-back after set-back in training. In my own experience no sailor gets more than 2 set-backs and when that happens he gets flunked out. I never met any of the TAR's in the year I waited for them. Don't know if they ever arrived. And I can tell you for sure that some recently graduated former PN/YN TAR, now a brand new ET2 or ET1 is going to take 2-3 years to ramp up to become a good, useful tech. On a happier note, the SELRES (except for 1 toad) were some mighty fine people. Sadly, our CO didn't think much of the SELRES and none of the very fine SWO SELRES were ever permitted to be OOD. Geez, I had a CDR and USNA LT's for my JOOD as a CWO3. Awkward, but the men were gents. But that last year aboard that NRF Frigate was awful in terms of manning. Just awful. Really awful. Really, really awful. Nobody was whining but constant, unrelenting fatigue and overwork can have a deleterious effect.
I didn't say it was likely. But if POTUS's goal is a fully electric fleet by 2035, then there is only one way that gets done. Prepare to surrender to your new NR daddy.
A second post in a row connected to my areas of expertise! Post about SSBNs, and we'll hit the trifecta.
When I left LCS last year, I moved to a Military Sealift Command Expeditionary Port Unit. Now, my job is running liaison between a port and a MSC ship(s). I did have the MSC intro course this spring, and we did talk about the OPDS. As in, it was mentioned. MSC, because of the Strategic Sealift Officer force, (1665 Officer Designators), is heavily reserve manned. It's going to be an interesting few years. I may end up making decisions of consequence.
This most recent reserve weekend, I did have a conversation about human capital and training with an admiral. If, we as a Navy, are going to have a relevant Navy Reserve that puts sailors into roles ready to go, there needs to be more training. As I said yesterday, I've gotten very little formal training related to my billets in the past 11 years. In truth, it ends up being about 6 weeks of time. Sailors should not be responsible for doing all the work for a school, especially if it's remote. It should be run by the gaining command's Reserve Program Director. Give the sailors a choice of dates, and the RPD then works with the training command.
MSC and any NCAGS mission will be completely reserve led. If the balloon goes up west of wake, it's likely every single Navy Selected Reservist will get a call, the active component isn't built to handle the problem alone.
So, when China decides to start The Great Pacific War, we will be fighting it without a proper Fleet Train?
We once knew that a wartime fleet train needed hundreds of ships, so we better start building them in peacetime, with MARAD loans and grants.
My Dad's ship, USS ALDEBERAN ( AF-10 ), was built for United Fruit, as a high speed reefer, under a MARAD loan, with the conditions that she was made to USN standards, and could be taken as a AR, in time of war. SS STAG HOUND made one round trip for United Fruit, when Pearl Harbor changed her name to ALDEBERAN.
How long do you think it will take to demine the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the approaches to Long Beach/LA harbors, San Diego and the Golden Gate? Each LCS can clear one mine, so I think we'll run out of LCS before we run out of mines at San Diego alone.
or... an attempt to play whack-a-mole WRT gas prices.
“ I’ll throw this out to the Front Porch - please tell me it isn’t as bad as it seems where once again we are talking a big game,..”
You know the answer to that Phib. And yes, we are all getting recalled to active duty. At least the majority of members of the front porch recalled won’t be concerned about fitreps or PFA or woke tranny training.
Let's hope those recalled are in as good of shape as Chief Sanderson was in 1942. Frakking 80? Jeez! https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-81000/NH-81981.html
There is crusty and then there is crusty.
I found a full list of documents and pictures for the Chief here:
https://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/342621-chief-george-sanderson-oldest-usn-sailor-in-wwii-csc-12050/
I suspect (but can't be sure, of course) the pronouns were she/her for these WAVES surrounding him in the picture:
https://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/uploads/monthly_2020_05/162942675_BMCGeorgeSanderson013.jpg.661f0154382f37d7f567291ec6e37616.jpg
He was blessed with 89 and a half good years to walk this Earth and sail her seas. Not bad for a cigar smoker!
https://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/uploads/monthly_2020_05/1698283294_BMCGeorgeSanderson005.jpg.5424b7c296bf9c58482b20f09cd1b919.jpg
Thanks for sharing this!
The only sailors I've seen with a similar number of hashmarks of late were some VTU bubbas who were retiring as First Classes at age 60. They kept doing funeral honors, and were allowed to re-enlist.
The world needs flag folders too.
When FFG-9 went NRF in 1985 we had a SELRES CWO4 who sported a gold Underwater Demolitions pin. He'd been a Navy Frogman in WWII. The guy was ancient but impressive. For all I know the gentleman is still bench pressing truck axles. I was a CWO3 at the time and kinda worshiped him.
If the first step is knowing you have a problem, CNRF Battle Orders 2032 at least checks that box. Unfortunately, the AC/RC leadership thinks they have a decade to even take one step in the right direction towards fixing that problem.
Or how about this….from a similar-leaning blog…
“On a different note I just spent an hour and a half listening to the joint testimony of the USTRANSCOM commander before the SASC. …. General Van Ovost, the TRANSCOM commander pointed out that the 44 RORO vessels in our inventory are all 44 years old or older with 17 that are 50 years older. She did not go as far as her predecessor did in admitting insufficient capacity but she did a very good job of arguing that we need to recapitalized the vessels run by the Maritime Administratoin (Ready Reserve). She admits serious problems in INDOPACOM.
…. We are not in good shape. Tanker fleet is very old and not being rebuilt quickly enough. The same is true of our haze gray transports. Van Ovost’s written posture statement is written in DOD gibberish and she speaks the same way but in the end she is clear about the shape we are in.”
Damn sure glad Ike and Churchill weren’t facing this problem set 79 years ago….
Are you sure that USTRANSCOM means what it used to mean?
Too old and not enough. Just look at the current NDRF and MSP lists. Is leadership really saying that's enough to support a sustained peer-to-peer conflict in WESTPAC?
Old National Guard/USAR MSG here. Not only does the USAR do this well, but there are kinds of units that are (or at least used to be) primarily army reserve units. The Army learned some hard lessons in Desert Storm I about ensuring that these units have all their equipment and actually gets out into the field to use it in semi-real-world situations (and again as we rolled into Afghanistan/Iraq) One key value I noted at the time is that in many cases in the USAR and NG units were civilian SMEs in the field.
Perhaps we need the Navy equivalent of the Army Corps of Engineers.
I was going to add that the Coast Guard already has this mission, so we might want to expand it further support our preparedness for conflict.
The Coast Guard Auxilliary? The 243rd line of defense behind the Green Acres HOA and Harris County Horticulture Society?
I'd never underestimate a HOA Unit. They have tooth, claw, tenacity and the mission focus of a monoclonal antibody.
Isn’t that what the Construction Battalions are? Or at least, used to be? John Wayne, “The Fighting Seabees”.
few different flavors... NMCBs are homeported out of Port Hueneme and Gulfport, ACB 1 out of Coronado and ACB2 (just decom'd) out of Little Creek. Then there are the UCTs (underwater construction teams). As for the fighting part? Well there are annual Field Ex's but they're defensive in nature... convoy stuff is usually fun going through the Tanga Tanga in Guam or say at Pendleton where some pain-in-the-ass SEALS are brought in to unleash havoc on the main body... typically around 3:00 a.m.
The only way that this will work in the reserves is if we use 1) Exclusively commercial equipment and 2) Commit to not scrapping the units. We relegated the Inshore Boat Units, Coastal Riverines, and Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare Units to the reserves and it was their death knell. The only thing that the reserves are able to do without getting stabbed in the back is Coffee / Donuts units in Newport and the Pentagon, or some cush Naval Readiness Center job to support IA's. By using commercial equipment, the Navy's maintenance and operations budgets won't be taxed, we'll only pay to practice on commercial equipment, and if the balloon goes up we can lease the equipment at risk or ouright purchase it.
Concur on the equipment. The original CB units had no choice but to use commercial equipment due to the need for an immediate reaction force - which I submit is where we find ourselves today. As a retired EDO, I’ll even go out on a limb and suggest that with only a few equipment changes (to simplify repair logistics), all of the vessels Sal talks about could be duplicated to deal with that part of the equation.
“...every other service seems to do a better job getting a bang for its buck from the reserves. The Navy seems to let so much human capital go uncaptured - even in part - when they leave the active force.”
100% correct (unless things have changed, which I doubt.)
First-hand experience: when the first Gulf War went down, me and a couple of buds - we all had been F-14 FRS instructors, now SELRES - went to the skipper of the F-14 RAG, said, if any of your pilots get ordered to the Fleet, we volunteer to come back to the FRS on active duty, or as SELRES, to cover the loss. I was more than willing to CQ and deploy.
We got told, to our faces, “I don’t need the Reserves”...all the while we watched Guard F-16 pilots going in on the first wave. In fact, an F-14 bubba that switched to the ANG (Syracuse, IIRC) was in on that first strike.
We got told later, after the war,it was all about funding. If the REGNAV could show they were 100% combat capable and ready, met all war tasking without “needing” the Reserves, then a claim could be made on reservist funding. “Why spend all this money on the Reserves when we just fought a war and didn’t need them?” so the argument went.
Sadly, a war west of wake will be a little bit more complicated than telling Saddam he can't have his new gas station. At this rate, America is going to wake up one morning and realize that they can't meet the tasking without the Navy Reserves and the Reserves they do have, haven't be trained to do the job they need them to do.
It is more than likely even worse than we think. I was recently by Suisun Bay several times in the past two months. There is one RORO and about 5 or 6 Liberty ships and an old single stack DE. That’s it. The RORO appears to be mid 70’s vintage. On top of that, we have grossly neglected our merchant fleet. We do little to promote and encourage maritime careers. The learning curve is much more difficult when you have people shooting at you. It’s good that some are ready to be recalled, because what I see from the MElinneals is not encouraging.
Just look at the list of ships available on the NDRF and MSP list, and ask yourself are those enough logistics and repair support needed to win a sustained peer-to-peer conflict in the Western Pacific? Be afraid, be very afraid.
I know we need more fighting hulls, but until we can support them, better not Jack up production of Virginias, Burkes, Constellations, and Fords.
MORE TANKERS, TENDERS, AND TUGS.
I have been retired for a long time and spent most of my USN years in USNR.
Biggest problem with USNR is the TAR program. In my opinion, the TAR program is just a way to insulate the active reserve from the regular Navy. Being in the Ready Reserve means one weekend a month, or equivalent, and 14 days a year on ACDUTRA.
I think the reserve program should be administered by an augmentation officer in every command with need for reserve help. They could control and assign personnel where needed rather than asking a third party to do the same.
It might make the reserve member a little closer to the active Navy and help in readiness when they train with their parent command.
Ditch the TAR program, save some money and have a real Ready Reserve.
I concur. I spent most of my time as a reserve unit CO fighting the TARs. Naval Reserve Force ships and aircraft units work pretty well -- the reserves kept the mine force alive -- but rest of the reserve program is a waste of time and manpower. Integration with the active Navy would be an improvement.
100% agree. The reserve unit N8 is frequently nicknamed the NOSC Warfare Officer. TARs and NRCs (what they call NOSCs again) should be put out to pasture in favor of a model where the supported Active Duty command is responsible for training and equipping their RC sailors which support their mission, with the funding and personnel needed to get that done. The British have been operating with this model for years.
The encouraging part is that the RC is moving towards a model where they train more with their supported AC component with flex drills away from the NRCs focused on training for their actual mobilization billet. Basically, what the reserves were meant to do before twenty years of endless desert war atrophied that ability.
In my last year aboard an NRF Frigate we lost many Regulars and the shortfall was to be made up by SELRES who got underway with us one weekend a month and for two weeks once a year. We were also supposed to get replacements TAR's for some of our lost Regulars too. I heard that most of those guys were "hand picked" PN's and YN's dragged kicking and screaming from permanent shore duty to sea duty (they had all been PROMISED 20 years of shore duty, you know) and were being force converted to ET and other technical ratings. The pipelines for training were very long..."A" School + follow-on equipment schools. I kept track of the ET's coming to me. It seemed pretty obvious they didn't like what was happening to them, but they couldn't flunk out. They got set-back after set-back in training. In my own experience no sailor gets more than 2 set-backs and when that happens he gets flunked out. I never met any of the TAR's in the year I waited for them. Don't know if they ever arrived. And I can tell you for sure that some recently graduated former PN/YN TAR, now a brand new ET2 or ET1 is going to take 2-3 years to ramp up to become a good, useful tech. On a happier note, the SELRES (except for 1 toad) were some mighty fine people. Sadly, our CO didn't think much of the SELRES and none of the very fine SWO SELRES were ever permitted to be OOD. Geez, I had a CDR and USNA LT's for my JOOD as a CWO3. Awkward, but the men were gents. But that last year aboard that NRF Frigate was awful in terms of manning. Just awful. Really awful. Really, really awful. Nobody was whining but constant, unrelenting fatigue and overwork can have a deleterious effect.
ahem. still here.
......I am the "WALRUS" (see DARPA)
"I don’t see any sane argument that would make the position that we need less instead more of both of these"
I thought the current administration said we need to be fully electric by 2035 or so. Petroleum is so 20th century anyway
In that case, someone should tell NR they may get nuclear cruisers again...
Not even remotely likely. Besides, we don't DO cruisers anymore. Conventional or otherwise.
I didn't say it was likely. But if POTUS's goal is a fully electric fleet by 2035, then there is only one way that gets done. Prepare to surrender to your new NR daddy.
What's worse is that USNR capabilities in this space have also been cut. But we still have a grunch load of RC sailors supporting LCS...
Only one OPDS? Do we even have the wherewithal to protect just one?
A second post in a row connected to my areas of expertise! Post about SSBNs, and we'll hit the trifecta.
When I left LCS last year, I moved to a Military Sealift Command Expeditionary Port Unit. Now, my job is running liaison between a port and a MSC ship(s). I did have the MSC intro course this spring, and we did talk about the OPDS. As in, it was mentioned. MSC, because of the Strategic Sealift Officer force, (1665 Officer Designators), is heavily reserve manned. It's going to be an interesting few years. I may end up making decisions of consequence.
This most recent reserve weekend, I did have a conversation about human capital and training with an admiral. If, we as a Navy, are going to have a relevant Navy Reserve that puts sailors into roles ready to go, there needs to be more training. As I said yesterday, I've gotten very little formal training related to my billets in the past 11 years. In truth, it ends up being about 6 weeks of time. Sailors should not be responsible for doing all the work for a school, especially if it's remote. It should be run by the gaining command's Reserve Program Director. Give the sailors a choice of dates, and the RPD then works with the training command.
MSC and any NCAGS mission will be completely reserve led. If the balloon goes up west of wake, it's likely every single Navy Selected Reservist will get a call, the active component isn't built to handle the problem alone.
So, when China decides to start The Great Pacific War, we will be fighting it without a proper Fleet Train?
We once knew that a wartime fleet train needed hundreds of ships, so we better start building them in peacetime, with MARAD loans and grants.
My Dad's ship, USS ALDEBERAN ( AF-10 ), was built for United Fruit, as a high speed reefer, under a MARAD loan, with the conditions that she was made to USN standards, and could be taken as a AR, in time of war. SS STAG HOUND made one round trip for United Fruit, when Pearl Harbor changed her name to ALDEBERAN.
It worked then, hopefully, it would work now.
How long do you think it will take to demine the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the approaches to Long Beach/LA harbors, San Diego and the Golden Gate? Each LCS can clear one mine, so I think we'll run out of LCS before we run out of mines at San Diego alone.
If the PRC is mining CONUS, SELRES won't care because we'll already be dead. It'll be the IRRs problem then. God help us.